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Actor, writer Joe Sears named artistic director

Theater Bartlesville instilled a new change for the theater and one that has the board of directors and the membership seeing stars.

Noted actor and playwright, Joe Sears, is their new artistic director.

Sears has returned to Bartlesville, in retirement of the national touring he has performed for the last 32 years. According to Sears, 63, he has been a union working actor since his first New York show in 1972.

Theater Bartlesville will continue to present comedies on a regular basis but Sears said he is going to start introducing more classics for the public, both comedy classics and dramatic, much like his first play “The Trip to Bountiful,” this fall.

Judy McGlasson, popular director at Theater Bartlesville, will stage the comedy classic, “The Odd Couple,” as planned, but the spring season will feature the musical “Little Shop of Horrors” directed by Sears.

“It’s important the members and the community move into these changes smoothly and make the blending new ideas with the 88-year-old theater group as comfortable as a porch swing,” said Sears.

In addition to performing on Broadway and receiving a Tony Award nomination for his performance in “A Tuna Christmas,” Sears has received the Los Angeles Drama Logue Award, a Helen Hayes Award nomination for his Washington, D.C. appearances and has performed twice at The White House.

Community theater is not new to Sears, said Mike Bass of Theater Bartlesville, who served as box office manager along with other board members who are helping run the office. Sears makes artistic decisions and directs the plays, recruits new membership and helps raise funds.

Currently, there are no plans to hire an executive director, according to officials with Theater Bartlesville.

Sears’ first production will be this fall when he casts the Horton Foote masterpiece about a tender-hearted but determined elderly woman traveling alone to find her way home in “The Trip to Bountiful.” In addition to the regular theater season, which includes an American farce — “The Fox on the Fairway,” Sears is adding a giant community production of “Romeo and Juliet” set in late 1950s in Bartlesville and will feature a handpicked Romeo and Juliet acting team of Bartlesville High School actors to perform the tragic love duo. Adult actors will support them in the family roles.

“I want to put this production in the Earl Sears Park if I can, not because he’s my brother, but the magnificent Central Middle School could be lit-up as a looming background in this Shakespeare classic.”

Sears said this production will attract new actors to Theater Bartlesville and new audiences. He told a recent membership gathering that “all communities want to see the classics performed but only if they are performed well.”

Sears comes to the spotlight of artistic director with high hopes for Theater Bartlesville. He wants to make Dewey Avenue a branch for the new entertainment scene that is happening for downtown.